Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD CHIEFTAIN by ALFRED TENNYSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: RAISE, RAISE THE SONG OF THE HUNDRED SHELLS!
Last Line: THE MEMORY OF THE DAYS OF OLD!
RAISE, raise the song of the hundred shells!
Though my hair is grey and my limbs are cold;
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old;

When my voice was high, and my arm was strong,
And the foeman before my stroke would bow,
And I could have rais'd the sounding song
As loudly as I hear ye now.

For when I have chanted the bold song of death,
Not a page would have stay'd in the hall,
Not a lance in the rest, not a sword in the sheath,
Not a shield on the dim grey wall.

And who might resist the united powers
Of battle and music that day,
When, all martiall'd in arms on the heaven-kissing towers,
Stood the chieftains in peerless array?

When our enemies sunk from our eyes as the snow
Which falls down the stream in the dell,
When each word that I spake was the death of a foe,
And each note of my harp was his knell?

So raise ye the song of the hundred shells;
Though my hair is grey and my limbs are cold,
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old!





Home: PoetryExplorer.net